I tried to complete Stage 1 of the Tour Of Watopia. I warmed up in London then came over to the start of Stage 1 with 4 minutes to spare. When it started the app kicked me out twice and it took over 70 minutes to start. By that time I could not complete the ride and make an appointment. Is this the normal?
No this is not normal. To avoid this happening in future don’t wait till 4 min to go, manually go to the pen earlier like 8-10 min. it is like a huge bottle neck to get everyone into the pen, and things can go wrong.
Sounds like the servers couldn’t handle the load… I made it into the pen with the auto-switch about 4 minutes out but it was chaos for the first few minutes. I was going all out, thinking that I could see the front and then another group would pop up just ahead of me. It was a brutal first 10 minutes.
Yes Zwift only display a certain amount of riders to help the user pc cope with the high graphic demand.
Usually, the clipping of “distant riders” isn’t noticeable, but it makes the start of any really large event pretty annoying, with nearby riders constantly popping in and out of existence for the first several minutes.
Hey! Here’s an idea: schedule more frequent stages so that there won’t be so many riders in a single event! 
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I just watched the first 10 minutes and I would not say annoying.
With the previous tour there was just as many people riding in certain time slots.
I was “there”. I would say it was pretty annoying.
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yeah, me too.
Just too many people. It was pretty annoying.
in the video he’s in the top200, I guess there are less people.
But not everyone here can do steady 400W.
I was in the 1100ish with 3k people doing 230-260W
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Are you implying that my perspective isn’t valid because I’m not a strong rider? Not everyone can be in the top 10%, Gerrie.
@Jim_Mattson certainly not, your opinion is appreciated. I did not see the ride from mid pack. I will do the ride when the stars align, then I will see how it look from the back. 
I think people popping in and out is still better than people with lower spec computers having dropouts and can’t ride.
I hope the next step for Zwift is to only drop riders if your frame rate (FPS) drop below 20FPS. That way people with good hardware won’t be limited.
The back, like the front, should not be too bad. To see the problem in all of its glory, you should strive for the middle.
It occurs to me that there is a relatively simple fix for this problem: don’t allow multiple cyclists to occupy the same space at the same time. People would pop in and out a lot less if faster riders had to force their way to the front of the pack rather than just riding through slower riders like they didn’t exist.
I can see why this approach might upset some people though. If a blob of 50 riders going 1.0 w/kg occupies the entire road ahead of you, you’re not going to be able to blow past them. It might be too much like a group ride in real life.
Don’t worry I will strive to be in front, but in reality that won’t happen, I am a C rider so I will see plenty mid pack. LOL
Making it impossible to pass thru riders is a big task with a lot of changes to the program, but not a bad idea.
My solution is to set rider off in smaller bunches based on there power to weight ratio (w/kg). So Zwift know my weight and my FTP they can do a quick calculation and release us in groups of 50 riders every 30 seconds, with the fastest ones first. that will fix the big group issue, but it will also group similar ability riders together, and I think that will be more fun. I think I will start a new topic with this idea.
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Tours like this (with this much people) should be parted in A, B, C and D categories (and E for women), just to channel this amount of riders.
In the first few minutes of the Stage 1 ride with ~3k riders I had a framerate like 5-8fps.
My PC is normally quite good for Zwift.
Intel i5-3470, 8GB, SSD, AMD HD 7850 2GB
Internet is 100/40
Will it get better, if I buy and install a used AMD R9 290 4GB?
Or is the bottleneck the CPU or the Zwift servers?
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I have an old 270x with similar but slightly overclocked i5 and it runs well on ultra at 1440p
Hi Ben,
I would suggest going for a Nvidia GTX1060 6GB you can get them used. I think Nvidia support on Zwift is a lot better. Look at results on zwiftalizer.com
You can see the 1060 out perform the AMD even with a slower CPU
Thx Gerrie,
sure, nVidia is always better in games, but also always more expensive, at least here in the EU.
I’ll see if I can find a cheap used GTX970. Or if I wait for my 42" FHD TV and see if my HD7850 works ok on 1080p.
At the moment I use a 26" TV with 720p.
I ran a GTX960 for about 3years on Zwift. It is a good GPU, I can think the 970 will be better.
Oh, and about the picture, the AMD GPU in the Mac is a mobile one. You can’t really compare it to a Desktop-GPU.
@Bench: There is not many AMD GPU’s on Zwiftalizer. That was just my personal opinion, I would suggest If you find a GPU to check on Zwiftalizer to compare the performance.
